Baby death: 'Everyone wants answers'

The father of a 3-month old baby whose death is now subject to a homicide probe says "everyone wants answers .... and I don't even have any myself".

Distraught dad Corey Neligan is struggling to come to terms with his young son's death more than five weeks ago.

Today, he struggled to put into words the "nasty" pain he is going through.

Mr Neligan told APNZ: "I'll remember him as being the best thing that ever came into my life. Period."

Emergency services responded to a report of a baby suffering a head injury and breathing difficulties at a rural Coaltrack Rd, near Burnham 30km south of Christchurch, at 6.45am on August 30.

Soul Mathew Turany was flown to Christchurch Hospital by Westpac Rescue Helicopter in a critical condition.

He was taken off life support just after 3am the following day.

Mr Neligan, originally from Masterton, was working at Coaltrack Road dairy farm when he met Storm Turany who had moved over from Dongara, Western Australia.

They entered a casual relationship and she fell pregnant late last year.

Mr Neligan moved to a new job as herd manager on a farm in Fernside, North Canterbury.

On August 30, his world was shattered by news that Soul had been rushed to hospital in a critical condition.

He has remained in touch with Ms Turany, who did not respond to queries from APNZ today.

They have exchanged tributes on Facebook to their young son.

"Love our chunky man," Ms Turany said on September 22, replying to a photo Mr Neligan had posted of him cradling Soul.

"Hard.." Mr Neligan replied, with a smiley face, adding, "Chunky monkey."

It took more than five weeks for police to reveal the death.

In a statement yesterday, police said they had launched a homicide investigation.

"Police are currently undertaking a criminal investigation into this matter and have spoken with a number of people in the Selwyn area in relation to this incident," it said.

"The investigation is on-going and police will not be making any further comment at this time."

Asked why it took so long to speak publicly, a police spokeswoman said that while they appreciated the need to keep the public informed, in this case "there was no public safety issue".

"This was a sensitive matter and police wanted to minimise the impact of any media release on the next of kin during the initial stages of the investigation," she said.

- By Kurt Bayer of APNZ